Do you struggle with unwanted fat? Does it seem like nothing you try ever works, diets or exercise? If you came here to this article looking for the answer, I will give you the answer in short so you don't have to go through the trouble of reading this whole article. Sugar. Stop eating so much goddam sugar, that's what's making you fat.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, do you want to stick around and keep on reading so you know what exactly I am talking about? It has taking me years to understand this, no one told me, I didn't read it in a magazine or saw it on Youtube. Everything  I am about to tell you is based on my own experience, putting my body  through extreme regimens. 

It wasn’t until last year in 2020 during the pandemic after all these years that I finally realized that sugar is what makes us fat. You see, no one tells you that. But I wonder why? We read that we have an obesity problem, on social media we are conditioned to believe that being fat is to be embraced, but how can I embrace my fatness if I am not comfortable with myself? I don’t feel good being fat. I don’t like watching myself in videos and pictures because I am self-conscious of my body, yet the media is pushing hard this fat image that is good, but it’s not.

From The Beginning

My journey began in 2008 when the President of the company I worked for at the time was big into training and fitness like cycling, running and MMA, this dude just had a very active life. He was doing things I could only dream of doing. I remember one time Darrell did a 7-day jalapeño diet. He only ate jalapeños for 7 days trying to lose weight. Anyway, Darrell got me to meet his personal trainer Ernie, and this dude was cut, lean and extremely fit. Long story short, Darrell paid for 3 months  membership for me to train with Ernie, I think it was during this time I was probably in my best physical shape ever but I still thought I was fat at 200 lbs at the time.

40 Days

In 2011 I had gained so much weight I was at my heaviest of 240 lbs because of poor eating habits. I had gained so much  weight that I was very unhappy with myself that I decided to do something about it. I remember that Darrell had done fasting regimens in the past and I thought I could do one too. One day in July of 2011 I just stopped eating. I recall that the first 24 hours were not bad, but little did I know that the next 48 hours were going to be a war of mind and will. You just don’t realize how much you think about food when you haven’t eaten. Every thought I had revolved about the urge to eat and satisfy my cravings. Food, food, food was the only thing that controlled my mind inside those 48-72 hours. On day four lo and behold the hunger pains were gone. The cravings were gone, the thoughts of food were gone. I remember after seven  days waking up and thinking, I haven’t eaten in seven days, wow, and just went on about my day like nothing. I drank a lot of water, in fact for the first 10 days that’s all I drank was nothing but water. I later read that after x amount of days organs start to fail if they don’t get nourishment and I didn’t want that to happen. I also read that the brain needs sugar to function properly and being that I had a mortgage payment and a job, I needed to stay sharp. I started drinking juices, mainly grape juice, apple juice just enough to keep the organs working properly. As the days went on, I was shedding so much weight everyday that it motivated me to continue doing it. I started at 240 lbs,  dropped to 235, 230, 220 and 200 lbs. By day 40 of fasting I was 190 lbs. I had lost 50 lbs of weight in 40 days. It was so much weight so fast that I looked sick. Everyone that knew me, was like DAMN dude, you sick? 

Coming back

I read that after fasting for so many days, eating anything solid could prove fatal because of the shock it would cause the body. I remember eating one scrambled egg slowly. The taste was an explosion of flavors, I drank smoothies for the first few days and then gradually began to eat normal. I kept my weight off for a few years after that fast, even though everyone would tell me it would come back two times worse.

Weight Fluctuations

In the years that followed I did mini fasting regimens to achieve short term goals but never really did anything as extreme as going 40 days without eating. Over the last six years in my active lifestyle I gained weight and lost weight without trying. I have pictures of myself where I like my weight and I have pictures that I know I’m pushing my comfort zone.

Fast Forward 2020

In January of 2020 I remember going to a meeting with the ATV Off-road crew planning our mud nationals event coming up that April. After our meeting we took a group photo and I did not like myself in the picture. I came home that day and weighed myself, how could I have allowed myself to get this way? I tipped the scale at 255 pounds the heaviest I had ever been in my life. I was a big dude. That day I programmed my mind that I would lose weight. In the past I had tried doing big fasts but failed within 36 hours of starting. This time I was determined and I knew I had to do it. I downloaded a few apps to help me achieve the goals I wanted. One was a fasting app, the other was a calorie counter app and a weight tracking app. 

First things first, was knowing were I was at and where I wanted to be. I weighed in at 255 pounds and I wanted to be at 200 pounds. Next I needed to know how I was going to achieve those goals and doing the same thing I had been doing was not going to get it done. The definition of insanity is wanting a different result but doing the same thing. I knew anything I tried at this point would have to be gradual. Knowing me, I don’t do gradual, it’s feast or famine, go big or go home. The fasting app helped me organize my regimen, I began with a 13 hour fast (those are easy) and gradually increased to 36 hour fasts. When it was time to eat I measured  everything I ate and counted every calorie. I started doing 500 calorie days paired with fasting regimens. Within a few days I lost 10 pounds with very little effort. I increased my calories to 2000 along with fasting intervals, drinking lots of water, no sugary drinks, no juices no sugar period. And the weight came off. By February 23, I was at 210 pounds. I stalled out for a few days and my body would not lose the weight. By the end of February I was at 205 pounds following a very strict diet and fasting. Covid hit and I dropped the regimen and went back to normal, because at the time I didn’t want to take any chances and I wanted my body to be in excellent health and strong to with stand the illness. Fortunately I never got sick.

2021 Experiment

By January of 2021 I weighed 230 pounds, I felt good and I was comfortable with myself. I recall reading that a can of coke contains 16 tea spoons of sugar. I don’t really remember the exact moment I realized that our bodies can’t process so much sugar and so it stores it as fat. We are conditioned to believe that it’s calories in the  food we eat that makes us fat and that’s not true.

 For the next three months in early 2021 I decided to drop sugary foods and drinks. I would only drink water and eat normal meals at normal times. I didn’t bother counting calories, in fact calories were no longer a concern. I ate normal breakfast like eggs and bacon and tortillas, lunch was normal meals that included  chicken, beef, rice beans, pasta, breads and dinner was whatever I wanted. For dinner I went to Denny’s almost everyday, really late at night and ate what I wanted with the exception of pancakes or anything that contained sugar. For three months I didn’t weigh myself because I didn’t want the attention on my weight. Around April I weighed myself again and my weight had remained the same 230 pounds.

The Sugar Foods

From April to June I kept eating the same but this time I added sugar to my diet. I started to eat sweets, cakes, pies, smoothies and I also began drinking cokes with my meals. By the end of June I weighed myself again and I was not surprised to see I was at 240 pounds. In July I dropped the sugary drinks and slowly weened myself from sugar. I have learned that sugar is an addiction, a drug and you can’t kick it cold turkey. It is one of the craziest things, because you have sugar crashes, sugar cravings and sugar just makes you feel good.

The Results

Here I am mid September doing 23 hour fasts, no sugar, one meal a day losing weight until my goal of 200 pounds. I’ll be doing this for the next 30 days. Once I achieve my goal, I’ll go back to eating normal with the exception of  sugary foods. I am currently at 230 pounds down 10 pounds since last Tuesday when I started my regimen.

The Conclusion

Things that I have learned on my own are:

Sugar is what makes us fat, our body cannot process so much sugar that it stores it as fat.

Eating 2000 calories a day will cause you to lose weight until you plateau. 

Eating normal meals that don’t have sugar will not make you gain weight. 

You can eat whatever you want as long as its not sugar and you will not gain weight.

Soda, any type of soda or sugary drink is really bad for you.

Drinking water, lots of water contributes to a healthy body

Drinking cold beverages is bad. Cold drinks shock the stomach, it slows down the functionality of your stomachs ability to break down  food. Think about it, the stomach is an organ  that has acids that aid in digestion, it’s operating at normal stomach temperature, adding cold water/drink paralyzes your stomach it is the equivalent of pouring cold water on a hot engine. No bueno.

Something I haven’t quite figured out yet is what the body does with unspent calories. For example if I eat a steak, beans and rice totaling 3000 calories but I am in a state of repose, what happens to the calories/energy?

Another thing I haven’t figured out yet, is what is the baseline of sugar we can eat without gaining weight? How much sugar can the body process without being stored as fat?

Fasting is good for you and and it can get results fast. You have to think, we weren’t meant to eat every 4 hours. At one time we were hunters and gatherers, we would kill our meal and we’d go hours until we killed our next meal and plus the fact that we didn’t have so much processed sugar.